Chapter 67
<67> Wizard Ball Team?
“Why is there no entrance score? Ah, a saintess candidate, I see. Hmm.”
Buremhaide looked at Idnia and Marie, the last ones remaining, then slipped a hand into his coat and checked his pocket watch.
“An awkward amount of time remains. Shall we proceed? Or do it next class?”
His pocket watch was ringing.
It was the signal announcing fifteen minutes before the end of class.
And yet he was asking whether to continue or not…
‘Buremhaide is wary of the saintess candidate—more precisely, of the Holy Church. Unexpected…’
Was it because he knew that the Holy Church and the Emperor wanted to uncover the Academy’s secrets?
Even though there was more than enough time left, the fact that he was asking Idnia and Marie whether they would step up to the plate made Idnia realize that Buremhaide was being cautious of her.
“I will step up to the plate.”
“Hmm? Are you serious, Student Idnia?”
“Yes, I have some interest in Wizard Ball.”
“……”
“Yes?”
“No, it’s nothing. Even if you say that… I won’t be fooled. Hmm… no, it’s nothing.”
As he spoke, Buremhaide brushed his lips with his hand.
‘Tch… for a dragon like me to lose composure.
It seems I momentarily lost my senses at the mention of interest in Wizard Ball.
No. A saintess candidate is dangerous. It’s best not to get entangled with a messenger of the Holy Church…’
While calming himself, Buremhaide formed a polyhedron of water.
“Then as a simple test, I’ll throw it lightly.”
But this time it wasn’t a polyhedron. The shape changed into something closer to a golf ball, with small dimple-like air holes forming on its surface.
No matter how one looked at it, it didn’t seem like a light throw.
‘Let’s see if you’re truly good at Wizard Ball!’
Buremhaide hurled the sphere of water with more force than he had used on the other students.
It was even faster and more unpredictable than the ball he had thrown at Isolde, the top student of the year.
And yet…
Idnia struck part of the incoming ball with telekinesis through her wand, limiting its movement, then immediately deployed a shield spell on the wand, turning it into a bat, and swung it to hit the flying water sphere.
* Crack!
The water ball shot straight forward with a sharp sound, grazing past Buremhaide’s head and slicing through the air.
“Huh?”
“That wasn’t telekinesis, was it?”
“No, she did use telekinesis at first, but after that she hit it with a bat swing!”
“That’s…”
It went against the method of a telekinesis class.
However, it was the correct way for Wizard Ball.
A batter in Wizard Ball was meant to use magic and physical ability alike to strike and send the ball flying, and Idnia had faithfully carried out that role.
“Huh?”
Buremhaide blankly stared in the direction the ball had flown, then snapped back to his senses.
The ball Idnia hit had flown far away and landed in the middle of the lake.
“Th-this is a telekinesis class! Not a Wizard Ball class!”
“Yes, it is.”
“That just now was a ball that an outfielder or infielder could have easily caught. And I wasn’t even throwing with full strength…”
“Indeed.”
“…What was your name, student?”
“Idnia.”
She had already told him her name, but Buremhaide was too flustered to remember.
“Idnia Kathe Betelgeuse, right. The Betelgeuse duchess’s daughter. Hmm. Hmmhm. Hmmm!”
Unable to hide his excitement at her clean hit, Buremhaide’s expression brightened.
“Th-then let us end the class here. We shall return to the Academy.”
“Uh. You came all the way to Ansbach just for this?”
‘Just this,’ you say. You know we can’t throw things inside the Academy.
Now then, time’s up, so let’s head back! Ah, right. I’ll give you all an assignment.”
Buremhaide used telekinesis to lift water and formed three spheres.
“You will juggle these. Use telekinesis to toss them more than twenty times.”
“…What?”
Everyone was shocked at his words.
Even forming a single sphere of water pushed most students, who used the Mage Hand spell, to the limit of their concentration.
“Making spheres instead of polyhedrons is easy. Don’t try to gather water from outside—simply give the water cohesion and it will form a sphere on its own. Even a blockhead should be able to learn this. Ah. I can almost hear stones grinding.”
Following his advice, some students including Isolde tried to condense the water itself and managed to form three spheres with telekinesis.
But juggling them was a completely different matter.
And besides…
‘Wait, didn’t he carve that water into a polyhedron? Then that means he didn’t rely on cohesion at all—he actually shaped and threw it purely with telekinesis?’
Everyone was shocked at the overwhelming gap between themselves and Buremhaide.
Objectively speaking, it might seem ridiculous for novice magicians to think they could stand on equal footing with an ancient dragon like him, but these were students who had entered the prestigious Dunais Academy, brimming with pride in their skills and talent.
Yet seeing this gap… could they really catch up?
Even if matching a professor like Buremhaide was unthinkable, they began to doubt whether they could even keep up with the assistants.
“I’ll check it next class, so practice until then! That is all!”
With Buremhaide’s declaration, a teleportation gate opened.
---
Through the gate, all the students returned to the Academy.
As soon as they did, they all collapsed onto the ground.
“Ugh….”
“Wh-what is this?”
“Mana sickness? Teleportation sickness? No, rather…”
Catching the polyhedral water projectiles Buremhaide threw with telekinesis had consumed an enormous amount of concentration.
Strangely, they still had plenty of mana left, but their concentration was drained, leaving them mentally exhausted.
It was like standing as a target in a knife-throwing circus.
The body hadn’t done any labor, yet the tension alone caused intense mental fatigue.
That was how much concentration was required to apply strong telekinesis.
“This makes no sense. I use telekinesis all the time. Mage Hand, you know!”
Mage Hand was a simple, low-level spell but highly useful, so almost every mage learned it.
Any student who had studied magic could use it.
And yet, trying to use that telekinetic spell even once to catch the water ball had left them this exhausted.
“That elf-looking brat professor—whatever his name, Buremhaide—he’s twisted. When we used telekinesis, he adjusted the force so it was just barely difficult enough to strain us.”
Cendia Aspinal, having more experience with magic, explained the situation to the others, trying to keep them from becoming too discouraged.
“Doesn’t that just mean he’s incredibly skilled? In that short moment, he was observing our responses and adjusting the strength…
And he was writing on the board with one hand. No, calling it a board is strange.
He was giving a theoretical lecture through illusion magic for us, while throwing balls with the other hand and adjusting their power based on our telekinetic reactions?”
“…Exactly. I told you, he’s a perverted dragon.”
As Cendia said that, a staff floated up behind her.
When everyone looked, Buremhaide was standing there.
“A perverted dragon? Are you referring to me?”
“Ah….”
Cendia froze in shock as Buremhaide appeared behind her.
But…
“Hahaha. It’s fine. It’s true, after all.”
Buremhaide replied calmly with a smile.
“Do not worry. First-year. Blockhead. I am not the type to punish someone for speaking the truth. What I cannot tolerate is…”
“Cannot tolerate?”
“A challenge to my authority. Two demerit points.”
“What?!”
Cendia Aspinal was given two demerit points.
“Wait, that’s not what you said! You said you wouldn’t punish me for telling the truth!”
“If I had punished you, you would have suffered something worse than death. This is merely the Academy’s demerit system, not my personal punishment.”
“That’s….”
“Well? Do you wish to receive my punishment instead? Perhaps Thanatos? Do you have a death wish?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Is that so? What a pity. Ahem. Putting that aside—Student Idnia, have you eaten?”
“Ah, no.”
“Good. I caught some rainbow trout and prepared it. Would you join me for dinner tonight? In my private quarters.”
“…Pardon?”
Buremhaide had invited Idnia to his office, his personal quarters.
It was something that had never happened before, and everyone was stunned.
---
“What’s going on?”
From a distance, Rudolf, startled by the sudden commotion, asked what had happened.
Isolde answered in place of the others.
“Professor Buremhaide… invited Idnia to dinner!”
“Dinner?”
Hearing it like this, it almost sounded like an invitation out of romantic interest.
But Buremhaide was a dragon, currently in the form of a young elf boy.
That couldn’t be the case…
‘No, why would I even think that? It makes it sound like I’m… jealous.’
Rudolf shook his head.
“For an Academy professor to invite a student to dinner… that’s quite unprecedented. Surely he isn’t offering her an assistant position.”
“She’s only a first-year.”
As Isolde replied, she noticed that Rudolf was paying attention to Idnia.
And Rudolf wasn’t the only one concerned about this situation.
---
“Hmm….”
Lorenzo wanted to build relationships with the professors, both because of his ties to the Holy Church and his own ambitions.
Yet while he had made no progress at all, Idnia had grown close enough to receive a personal invitation.
“It’s probably because of Wizard Ball. Lady Idnia was the only one who managed to hit Professor Buremhaide’s ball.”
Fiona explained the situation to Lorenzo.
“That must be it.”
“Lady Idnia also made contact with our supervisor during her outing. The supervisor urged her to be mindful of her role as a saintess candidate… so for now, let us leave things to her. Meanwhile, we will continue our efforts—recruiting Baroness Vuillem and the warden Gibbles.”
Lorenzo and his group were trying to recruit Academy staff to investigate it more easily.
They were using the Medici family’s wealth and information network to win over Baroness Vuillem and Warden Gibbles, both weak to aristocrats.
But compared to those efforts, Idnia had gained Buremhaide’s favor directly, and Lorenzo could not help but feel both inadequate and in awe of her.
‘Idnia Kathe Betelgeuse… you truly are dazzling. Coming to the Academy was the right choice. I thought I was exceptional within my small well, but this has broadened my horizons.’
Just meeting Idnia at the Academy made all the expensive tuition and trouble worthwhile in Lorenzo’s eyes.
---
Meanwhile, Karl and his followers from the Boreas dormitory were also on high alert at Buremhaide’s invitation to Idnia.